Michele Bachmann Appears on National Cable TV Every 9 Days
With her A-block interview on health care reform on Fox News’ Hannity program Tuesday evening, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has now equaled in 7+ months in 2009 the number of national cable television news appearances she made in all of 2008.
A Smart Politics analysis of media transcripts dating back to when Bachmann first took office in D.C. in January 2007 finds the Congresswoman has made 22 appearances on national television cable news programs through mid-August 2009 – the same number she made in all of 2008. (The Congresswoman did not make any such appearances in 2007).
Representative Bachmann has thus substantially increased her national profile from averaging one national cable television news interview every 16.6 days in 2008 to one appearance every 9.1 days thus far in 2009.
In addition to the increasing number of national cable television appearances, there has also been a notable shift in the networks on which she is appearing.
In 2008, only half of the conservative Congresswoman’s televised national media appearances were on the right-leaning Fox News Network: 10 on the Fox News Channel (FNC), and one on the Fox Business Network (FBN). Bachmann made nearly an equal number of appearances (9 of 22, 41 percent) on CNN – with the majority of those being on Larry King Live.
Bachmann also made two appearances last year on MSNBC – one an October 2nd interview with David Shuster on the financial bailout plan, and the second being her well-known October 17th interview with Chris Matthews on his Hardball program.
In 2009, however, 68 percent of Representative Bachmann’s appearances have been made on the Fox networks – 13 on FNC and 2 on FBN. The Congresswoman has been a favorite of Glenn Beck – appearing six times this year on his popular program – as well as Sean Hannity on his primetime Hannity program (four times).
Bachmann has only made three appearances on CNN this year, and has sworn off MSNBC after her headline-making appearance last October on that left-leaning network. However, Bachmann has made four appearances on MSNBC’s sister channel CNBC – three of which were with Larry Kudlow.
Michele Bachmann National Cable News Program Appearances, 2008-2009
|
Network
|
2008
|
2009*
|
Total
|
|
Fox News
|
10
|
13
|
23
|
|
CNN
|
9
|
3
|
12
|
|
CNBC
|
0
|
4
|
4
|
|
Fox Business
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
|
MSNBC
|
2
|
0
|
2
|
|
Total
|
22
|
22
|
44
|
* Through August 18, 2009. Data compiled by Smart Politics.
Congresswoman Bachmann has been interviewed on a variety of subjects this year, including her opposition to bailouts, the federal stimulus package, a global currency, ACORN receiving taxpayer money, energy taxes, giving detailed information for the U.S. Census, and the President’s health care plan.
Even though Bachmann made 22 appearances last year, her cable news blitz did not begin in earnest until August 2008. All but one of her 44 appearances have occurred within the last 12 months.
Overall, Representative Bachmann has appeared on 19 different cable news programs since 2008, led by Larry King Live (8), Your World with Neil Cavuto (6), Glenn Beck (6), Hannity (4), and The O’Reilly Factor (3).
Despite these national media appearances, Bachmann still raised two-thirds of her Q2 2009 individual itemized campaign contributions from within Minnesota.
Raising her national profile, however, may have enhanced Congresswoman Bachmann’s ability to raise small funds from across the country. Representative Bachmann outraised her closest Minnesota colleague by more than 3 to 1 in unitemized small donor contributions last quarter. (Since the FEC does not require contributions of less than $200 to be itemized it is unknown what percentage of these come from outside of Minnesota).
If Bachmann remains true to form, continuing to appear on national cable television news programs once every nine days, she will next turn up on your television set on August 27th.
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You forgot Bachmann’s multiple appearances on MSNBC Countdown–as Worst Person of the World.
> You forgot Bachmann’s multiple appearances on MSNBC
> Countdown–as Worst Person of the World.
This analysis, as I am guessing you are aware, is only studying live, in-person appearances. Not programs that talk about her.
I might be throwing a dart here but I think this helps to explain why her congressional office has *three* staffers dedicated to press/media.
Perhaps you could examine how many times Bachmann’s planned media appearances has landed her on Olbermann’s “Worst Persons” list, and the correlation between the two.
Or compare the number of times she’s appeared on national tv with the number of times she’s met with her constituents in an open forum in her district.
I would hazard a guess that the Congresswoman receives more comments than most all of your other columns and or subjects.
Excluding of course the columns regarding the past senate election..
Perhaps this loonie toon should define what constitutes “anti-America” sentiments. Was it ‘pro-America” for our elected leaders to lie us into this war in Iraq? Or those who love this war hoping it will last for a century and result in “victory?” How will this be accomplished? Will we manage to get Al Qaeda to surrender as happened aboard the USS Missouri in 1945 to end Woeld War 2? Since they are a globally dispersed gang will bin Laden’s surrender mean all those who support his agenda also simply throw in the towel? 美女写真 Let’s get real and finally come to the sad reality that Bush/Cheney and their Neocon advisors have entangled us into an unwinnable war against Islam’s billion plus adherents which will never end.
Its amazing how when anyone disagrees with the left they are terrible people. Well I am a life long Democrat, a senior citizen, retired on a small pension and I would like to say that President Obama is a piece of garbage. He is in office for only four years and he knows he will never be re-elected again. His goal is and has always been to totally destroy America and he is giving it his best efforts. The American people have not been getting the truth about anything the man does because of the national news personnel, who are basically a bunch of liars who couldn’t speak the truth if they had to speak it. They only let the people know the Obama side of everything not both sides and definitely nothing that Obama does wrong, which is about everything. The so called journalist Olbermann is so obviously dishonest when reporting anything about Obama as are the rest of the slime. They are to stupid to realize that when this country is destroyed and we lose all of our freedoms that we have always had, they also lose, but maybe they like to be losers because they really play the part. It is getting old to still be blaming Bush for everything that is wrong, he is at fault for somethings, but the mortgage crisis was caused by Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, who made laws that loans had to be made to people who didn’t even have jobs, how do you suppose what was going to happen then. Wake up you bunch of so called journalists and smell the coffee the people will eventually make you pay for all your lies. I thank God that none of you were in the business during WW2, you would have been giving all the info to the enemy even telling them when the Normandy invasion would happen, loose lips sink ships and yours are flapping wildly in the breeze. Get over your love affair with Obama and tell the American people the truth for once it might feel good.
Re: Mr Raney, “the mortgage crisis was caused by Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, who made laws that loans had to be made to people who didn’t even have jobs”
As much as I dislike to refute an individuals concept of what is real and what is not. I will attempt to explain a few facts regarding CRA and liar loans….
The CRA has nothing to do with the financial crisis. How do we know this?
1) it has been in place for some thirty years,so if its going to produce disasters its not a very good explanation of a current crisis.
2) 80% of non prime loans were made by non regulated entities not subject to the CRA. So obviously their behavior was not in any way prompted by the CRA.
3) the institutions that were regulated and were subject to the CRA, none of them had any CRA rating problems. So they weren’t making these loans to try and improve their ratings. They already had great ratings.
4) what changed in CRA regulation over the recent period relevant to the crisis? It was weaken not strengthened as a result of Phil Gramm and the repealing of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.`The great success of the Glass- Seagall act was that it seperated depositors from risky bets.
Fannie & Freddie do have a role to play in this crisis. But its not the one that most people think about. Fannie & Freddie
ironically were the primary reason we didn’t have a crisis in sub-prime much earlier. Because Fannie & Freddie only purchased prime mortgages for packaging. And Fannie & Freddie’s standards in general are very good, that’s a conforming mortgage in jargon and so in in the old days the non-prime folks could not sell their stuff because only Frannie & Freddie could by it.
What changed? We passed a law that allowed what we call Private label to create Mortgage backed securities. So these are primarily investment banks. Its the investment banks that that purchased the non-prime loans. Then sent them to the rating agencies to receive bogus AAA ratings.
So its overwhelmingly again a story of actually weakening of the creation of competitors to Fannie & Freddie that led to this. But Fannie & Freddie did NOT purchase sub-prime loans, but exotic derivatives, the ones that got the phony AAA rating from the rating agencies. Primarily liar loans and it did so while at a time when the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight was regulating it and had full regulatory power to stop this practice. OFHEO was run by a conservative republican, he did not stop this practice, he did not think it was risky.It is also true that the Bush administration pushed the stuff, remember the “ownership society” it was in fact a bipartisan effort. Frannie & Freddie are massively insolvent as a result of the CDO’s they purchased.
I can assure you that all this CRA hooey is all made up.
The expansion was really fueled by housing, a huge amount of job creation was tied to housing, as well as a huge amount of consumption. Then of course the fact that everyone levered up in order to partake in the party. Now we are witnessing the de-levering of industry and households. The question should not be when will the economy recover, the real question is: what will the new economy look like? As the old one was unsustainable………….
Any further questions?
nice article, thank you
As a lifetime registered Democrat and one who went to the University of Chicago in the late 1960’s, I am now a blue dog Democrat in California.
I don’t recognize the Democratic party any more. It has been largely taken over by 1960’s radical of the kind I used to find on campus and in the surrounding neighborhood of Hyde Park.
I see the present fixation on health care insurance reform instead of on jobs and the economy as a struggle for the radical left to gain complete control of the party and drive fiscally moderate and conservative types such as me out of the party.
I hope that balance will remain. Radicals have their right to say what they believe, but I hope that their voice does not drown out all others.
@William.
You get radical factions with every single group in society. I am a republican, but I do not feel that the democratic part have been drowned out whatsoever.
Whether it’s left or right, white or black, Muslim or Christian, we’re always going to have radicals… but they’ll never speak for the majority of the group.